RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 10: The trial run of Vande Bharat Express Train, which was scheduled on June 11 from Patna for Ranchi, was postponed due to 48-hour Jharkhand bandh called by the Jharkhand State Students Union today.
The action was taken on the request of senior divisional operation manager of East Central Railway (ECR), Dhanbad, Anjay Tiwary, to the deputy chief operations manager of ECR, Hajipur.
According to senior divisional manager of Ranchi Nishant Kumar, the trial run is expected on June 12.
The union has called the bandh to protest the Hemant Soren government’s recruitment policy.Though no impact was observed in the capital due to the bandh call, there are reports of major impact in other districts.
Vande Bharat Express is a short distance train service operated by the Indian Railways. Similar to the Shatabdi Express, these are day train services that connect major Indian cities that are less than a day away.
The trains can support semi-high speeds but due to the speed capacity of the railway track and traffic constraints, the services’ operating speed is limited to 160 km/h and 110–130 km/h on the Delhi–Bhopal service.
The train, then known as Train 18, was designed by RDSO and manufactured by Integral Coach Factory (ICF). The specifications were also standardized by the RDSO. It was designed for low-cost maintenance and operational optimization. The cost of the 16-coach Vande Bharat train is approximately ? 115 crore (US$14 million).
On 27 January 2019, services using the Train 18 set were renamed as Vande Bharat Express with the first service commencing on 15 February 2019.
